The following text was copied from a website; Jaime Jackson - Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care. The site has since gone down, but this information was just too good to allow expiring, so I present here...

The Case Against Horseshoes


History

The first scientifically recognized wild horses appeared in fossil records approximately 55 million years ago. As the eons passed these horse-like animals continued to evolve into larger and faster animals and slowly developed into the horse we know today.

Man entered the scene with horses somewhere around 30,000 BC as a hunter in search of food. Fossils and artifacts found in Europe show drawings and carvings of these animals, and several ancient sites have been located in Europe with large collections of horse bones, suggesting the horse started out as a long term food source for early man.

It isn't until approximately 10,000 BC that we see the relationship of horse and rider begin. As humans found more uses for horses we saw man increasingly using tools to harness, control, and train the animals for specific purposes...mainly agriculture and war. As man continued to consolidate his hold on land and property, wars for territory became more common and the horse became the primary vehicle of conquest.

There is some confusion among historians about when the first horseshoes actually came into use...dates as far back as 3500 BC have been suggested by some, but there is no physical evidence or written records to support the theories. Several other historians place the date in the 5th or 6th century BC, but metallurgy was still in its infancy and iron was relatively scarce and difficult to work...therefore it seems unlikely that there was a widespread movement toward horseshoes at that time.

Fast forward to the 8th century AD and we have some folklore beginning to suggest that horses were being shod, but still no physical or written evidence of the fact. It isn't until about 900 AD that we finally find the first written record of iron horseshoes being used on cavalry horses. This seems far more likely, as feudalism and the Crusades finally made shoeing important for long distance conquest. Instead of horses being kept in loose herds or large paddocks, they were now being kept inside castle walls in damp stalls and confined spaces.

This was the Age of Iron and man was putting iron into and onto just about everything from men to horses.

One notable reason for putting shoes on horses feet at the time had to do with the conditions horses were being kept in. Being kept in an excessively wet environment and consequently being fed what 'humans' thought was good horse food, their mounts began having trouble keeping good feet. Since humans have a tendency to try to make nature 'better', the shoe became the fix for ailing hooves.
Instead of addressing the cause of problem feet, a piece of iron was nailed through living tissue and the hoof was artificially held together, as well as covering up the 'problems' so that they were no longer visible. Short term, the horse did move better with the shoe, but shoeing can and does cause long term changes and damage to the horses hoof. Thus the horseshoe was developed as one answer to an unhealthy environment for the horse, as well as for a tool of war and conquest. As one resource puts it, "Would you rather be run over by a barefoot horse or one with iron shoes? Would you rather be kicked barefoot, or with an iron shoe? What a sight to see an armored horse and rider charge you with sparks flying from their feet! What has changed about the horse in the last thousand years that makes them require shoeing?"

If the horse has been running around barefoot for 55 million years, (obviously a very successful species which had the ability to adapt to numerous and varied environments...until man took hold of them), then what, if anything, makes their hooves so weak that they require an iron support device? Simply put....MAN.

"Blacksmithery forges fear of the horse's natural capacity for high performance barefootedness. But, there's nothing to fear but soot! The horse's weak hooves are not congenital (or wild horse country would be full of lame horses), they are the products of blacksmithery and, depending on your boarding arrangement, close, prolonged confinement and other unnatural management practices." (And high sugar diets..) Jaime Jackson - Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care


Slightly over 1000 years ago man decided that he knew more than nature and began to make "improvements" to the horses feet by driving chunks of iron through the sensitive living tissues of the foot and attaching iron plates to the bottom of the hoof. Over the centuries the practice of shoeing lead to the "belief" that horses "need" shoes in order to stay healthy and be rideable by humans.
Certainly man recognized that their horses were having problems with their feet, but as man often does, he starts by treating the symptoms rather than identifying and addressing the underlying causes.

" By leaving a horse barefoot, the greatest advantage is to hoof health. It allows the hoof's natural functions of shock absorption, traction, and biomechanics to perform at their optimum. Shoes inhibit natural function and the horse's natural way of going, and limb interference with shoes can cause injury." AFA Certified Farrier - name withheld



Present

Ultimately, the underlying causes for most problems with hooves boils down to....MAN. We have taken the horse from a natural environment and placed them in an artificially small one...where they don't get enough natural movement. We have taken away the horses natural food sources and substituted it with food MAN thought was good for them...without ever trying to find out what they eat naturally in the wild. In general today, our horses are being fed the human dietary equivalent of chocolate eclairs. We have also bred horses for specific traits, and then in-bred them some more to create specialized breeds, which also tended to magnify existing genetic weaknesses that have since been passed down through generations. In many cases very large breeds of horses were bred whose feet are still fundamentally designed for medium sized horses. In these cases a shoe becomes merely a crutch for poor breeding practices.
"Of the 122 million equines found around the world, no more than 10 percent are clinically sound. Some 10 percent (12.2 million) are clinically, completely and unusably lame. The remaining 80 percent (97.6 million) of these equines are somewhat lame... and could not pass a soundness evaluation or test." Walt Taylor - Co-founder of the American Farriers Association, and member of the World Farriers Association and Working Together for Equines program.[American Farriers Journal, Nov. /2000, v.26, #6, p.5]
What a horseshoe does to the hoof is similar to putting it in a straight jacket and suspending it in midair. The anatomy of the hoof essentially makes it a passive pump in the horses circulatory system. When the hoof is on the ground, the weight of the horse causes the hoof wall to expand outward and also compresses the contents of the hoof capsule downward, forcing the blood out of the hoof capsule and back into the bloodstream. When the hoof is picked up, the outer hoof wall contracts again and the release of weight allows the spongy tissue inside the hoof capsule to absorb fresh blood like a sponge.

Therefore, the more a horse walks, the more fresh blood is circulated through the foot, resulting in a healthier hoof. In addition, both the sole of the hoof and the frog make passive contact with the ground and act as shock absorbers aiding in the pumping action previously mentioned and preventing injury to the joints. When a hoof is suspended in shoes the frog is taken off of the ground and no longer provides support to the internal structures of the hoof. In addition, the shock absorption and traction on smoother surfaces that the frog provides are eliminated. As a result, the frog may atrophy and shrink over time.


"The foot was designed to be unshod. Anything that you add to the foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the foot's natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails, possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot's ability to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the natural process of the mechanism. Ideally, for the foot to work the way it has been designed through evolution to work, you would rather do less than more to the foot." Emile Carre' - Certified Journeyman Farrier and former president of the American Farriers Association.


Now, let's put a horseshoe on and see what happens. First the foot is lifted off of the ground...so the hoof wall is in a contracted state. Next a steel, aluminum, plastic, or similar metal shoe is then nailed, or sometimes glued onto the contracted hoof. There is now a piece of relatively inflexible metal attached to the hoof, essentially preventing the hoof from expanding when weight is placed on it. In many cases clips are also added to the shoe to prevent the shoe from moving around on the bottom of the hoof. These clips further restrict expansion of the hoof wall, as well as weakening it since the clip is actually cut into the hoof wall and filed flush.
Add to this, the fact that the shoe itself is lifting the hoof completely off of the ground, preventing necessary ground contact with the sole and frog. The foot is no longer pumping blood the way it used to and is unable to efficiently rid itself of the old blood, nor pickup up as much oxygen rich fresh blood when the horse walks. It is likely that the horse begins to lose sensation in the hoof over time, due to lack of proper blood flow, and as a result becomes more prone to serious injury since it can't feel it's feet as well as it once did. This is just the beginning...

The horseshoe also prevents any possibility of normal hoof wear. Therefore the hoof will grow out more rapidly within the confined restrictions of the horseshoe. We see under-run heels, excessive wall growth, contracted heels, atrophied frogs, quarter cracks in the hoof wall, abscesses, softening of the callus on the sole, thrush from mud and debris getting packed into the sole and held in by the shoe. Now we have a weakened hoof just waiting for some opportunistic fungus/bacteria or a minor injury to set off a cascade of health issues leading to lameness. If young and growing horses are shod, we see shoes affect the growth pattern of the hoof. It typically shows up as contracted heels, narrow frogs and unusually long hoof capsules. Since this growth was altered by shoes, the coffin bone as well as the supporting skeletal structure will all have grown around the shoe, making the deformation permanent for the life of the horse. It won't necessarily cause lameness and many shod horses make fantastic transitions to barefoot performance.


The unshod hoof is rounder and wider with a huge healthy frog and heel bulbs, providing lots of shock absorption and support. By comparison the shod hoof is long, narrow, and oval with an atrophied frog and contracted heels with virtually useless heel bulbs. These parts of the hoof rarely touched the ground while in shoes and the result was atrophy and a misshapen hoof. Unfortunately there is not much we can do to turn the lifetime shod hoof into the unshod hoof. We will trim the shod hoof as best we can and hope that over time the atrophied parts of the hoof will reawaken. The hoof may improve slightly with time, but to a large degree the damage has already been done.

"At first thought, there is a tendency among many horse enthusiasts and professionals to reject the wild horse hoof as a model worthy of emulation. This is understandable. What business does a 'wild' hoof have being on a, 'domestic' horse? More often I hear, "What applies to wild horses doesn't apply to domestic horses, because domestic horses aren't wild and they don't live naturally." Or, just as common, 'I don't want anything 'wild' on my horse!'"

This type of logic, on closer inspection is fraught with misunderstandings. First, there is no physiological or genetic difference between wild horse hooves and domestic horse hooves. That's because there's no physiological difference between wild and domestic horses. Both are members of the same species, or if we are talking about near relatives, such as the ass, or mule, they are members of the same genus or are interspecies hybrids.
So, when we say that a horse is "wild" all we're really saying is that it isn't "domesticated." But it's the same animal, either way. As I described in The Natural Horse, the domestic horse originally came from the wild, thousands of years ago. So rejecting the value of "wildness" in the horse, in a sense, is foolish because it means rejecting the horse's biological roots. It blinds us to the essence of what it means to be a horse."
Jaime Jackson - Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care

Still want to shoe your horse?

Care for horses...

A USDA report released in 2000 showed that over 50% of horse operations surveyed had one or more horses that were victims of active laminitis.
There are really 4 basic requirements to keeping your horse happy and healthy.

  • Food
  • Water
  • Exercise
  • Environment

None of these alone will keep your horse healthy. It is a combination of everything you do that keeps stress down and provides your horse with the nutrition and excercise necessary to keep them in optimal health. Let's take a brief look at each of the categories.


Food

Our horsekeeping philosophy is to keep it as natural and simple as possible. Providing the horse with simple basic food is really all that the average horse needs.
What is simple basic horse food?


Essentially...good quality dry grass hay. That's right... not alfalfa, not clover, not grains, not highly processed food products, not pellets, not sweet feed, not chemicals, not drugs....but dry grass hay.Unless your horse is an athelete, grass hay should be all the nutrition they need along with salt and a mineral block.


Basic ingredients in a good grass hay may contain:

  • Timothy
  • Orchardgrass
  • Bromegrass
  • Sudangrass
  • Bermudagrass

The MAJOR cause of obesity, laminitis and founder is food...specifically green grass from pasture and legumes such as alfalfa, clover, soy, or birdsfoot trefoil. Sweet feeds, rich grains, pelleted feeds and prescription drugs (such as some yearly innoculations, antibiotics, and steroids) can also be founder triggers with some horses, especially if they have already foundered. (Become lame from laminitus.)

Additionally, being overweight, or obese is a strong indicator for likelihood of founder. There are also known genetic tendencies for some horses and breeds...specifically Arabs, Morgans and ponies. These breeds or crosses of these breeds appear to be particularly sensitive to grass founder and laminitis.

"...lush green pastures, contrary to popular opinion, are unnatural habitats for horses and they are also the source of a harmful diet. As a result, tens of thousands of U.S. horses succumb to laminitis each year because they are turned out to live on grass and legume fields."
Jaime Jackson - Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof
Care

An average horse should be given approximately 1.5 pounds of quality dry grass hay per 100 pounds of body weight. Feeding by weight instead of by volume is far more accurate and will help you control your horses weight better. You can use a weight tape to estimate your horses weight enough to get a ballpark idea on how much hay they need. You may want to consult with your vet on an ideal weight for your horses and then adjust feed until you have their weight under control again.
Quality grass hay should be relatively dust free and should not be moldy. The outside of a bale may be brown, but the inside should be green and smell rich. Grass hay should be cut after morning dew has evaporated to prevent excessive fructose content. Find more information about grass hay at www.safergrass.org.
Horses also need access to a mineral block and a salt block to provide elements that are not in found in high concentration in their feed.


Water


Obviously, fresh water is essential to the horse. They are likely to drink 10 to 12 gallons per day and water should be available at all times. Ideally your horses will have a pond or large pool that they can walk into to soak their feet, drink, and play in. It shouldn't be swimming pool clean...and as a matter of fact, wild horses have been seen drinking muddy water, suggesting that they may be picking up healthy gut bacteria, as well as minerals that may be suspended in the water. Foot soaking can also relieve some of the pain and inflammation of laminitis/founder as well as cleaning and softening the hoof, especially during extended dry periods.


Exercise


The wild horse, which we use as our model for horse health, moves between 15 and 30 miles per day in search of food and water. The average domestic horse is lucky if it walks a couple of miles per day and gets ridden several miles once per week. Research is suggesting that movement and excercise can offset, or even prevent laminitis/founder in some cases.
Therefore it is a horse owners responsibility to find a way to encourage their horses to move as much as possible during the day. A simple method of encouraging movement is to spread their daily hay out to several locations within the paddock or field, preferably as large a dry paddock as you can arrange. This will encourage natural foraging instincts that will keep your horses moving from feeding station to feeding station throughout the day. The best part is that they will be excercising and it will be their idea!

Obviously, taking some time to lunge them, or provide some other excercise for 15 to 30 minutes 2 or 3 times per week would be an additional practice that would help keep their muscles toned, reduce excess weight, and help maintain flexibility.


Environment


"The same care which is given to the horse's food and excercise, to make his body grow strong, should also be devoted to keeping his feet in condition. Even naturally sound hoofs get spoiled in stalls with moist smooth, floors. The floors should be sloping, to avoid moisture, and , to prevent smoothness, stones should be sunk close to one another, each about the size of the hoofs. The mere standing on such floors strengthens the feet.

This place outside of the stall would be best suited to the purpose of strengthening the horse's feet if you threw down loosely four or five cartloads of round stones, each big enough to fill your hand and about a pound and a half in weight, surrounding the whole with an iron border to keep them from getting scattered. Standing on these would be as good for him as travelling a stony road for some part of every day; and whether he is being rubbed down or is teased by horseflies, he has to use his hoofs exactly as he does in walking. Stones strewn about in this way strengthen the frogs too."

Xenophon - The Art of Horsemanship
Approximately 400 BC


Horses are very adaptive creatures. Extremes of heat and cold don't appear to bother them too much, as long as they've had time to gradually adjust to climatic conditions.
Ideally horses should be kept in a dry dirt paddock with medium ground firmness and some variable terrain. Obviously, in some areas that just isn't possible, but with some creative thinking on your part it is possible to at least minimize your horses exposure to unhealthy situations.

An area with a pool, or pond will provide water and wading for your horses...even something simple like a shallow area scraped out of flat ground and filled with water would be adequate, provided there is safe footing around the perimeter.
A run-in shed is also a good idea for those times when the weather is bad, or the horse needs somewhere to get away from glaring afternoon sun, or flies.


Overwhelmingly, the major traditional causes of lameness are joint disease, laminitis, infections, and injury. Let's look at each of these briefly.


Joint disease can be caused by many factors and can be very difficult to diagnose. I look at humans for a model and find striking similarities between joint diseases in man and horse. While apparently some problems can be caused by weak genetics, usually this results in a weakness or tendency toward problems rather than an outright cause. More often than not we see diet and lack of excercise as the major culprits. Being overweight or obese can also put an enormous strain on the joints, in addition to the fact that some foods can cause joint inflammation in people and animals that are sensitive to certain substances.

Rather than throwing bottles of prescription medication at the animal in the hopes that 'something' will work, or nailing restrictive shoes on their feet, we should be looking at the foundations of horse care and eliminate the possible environmental factors first. It takes a bit longer to correct a problem this way, but it is a real solution instead of a bandaid. A horseshoe in this case is nothing more than a bandaid.


Laminitis is rampant in our area. We have been to several operations this year and found well over half of the horses suffering active laminitis attacks!

The common thread in all of these cases is green pasture...that's right...turning your horse onto green pasture is a recipe for laminitis and founder. It is the equivalent of putting a human on a chocolate ice cream diet 24/7, it is simply too rich for a horses digestive system. Not only does grass promote laminitis and founder, but it is also a major contributor to your horse becoming overweight.


The worst times of the year for laminitis attacks are early spring and late fall when the temperatures are cool at night and warm during the day, but any growing green grass is capable of triggering laminitis. Cool weather produces an excess of fructose in the grass that upsets the horses digestive system setting up the conditions for laminitis...founder occurs when laminitis becomes acute.
The traditional vet/farrier solution starts by administering blood thinners to increase circulation in the hoof, pain killers to medicate symptoms and special shoes on the feet to attempt to slow down or cushion the sole and provide support as the coffin bone sinks toward the ground in the hoof capsule.

Once again...we are treating the symptoms and not the cause. Until and unless we address the source of the laminitis the problem will simply be masked by shoeing, while allowing the condition of the hoof to continue deteriorating to the point where the only humane option may become euthanasia. Most of these horses could be restored to soundness within a couple of months with proper diet, environment and natural hoof care, and some can be fully returned to health within a year.


Infections have so many causes that it is folly to try cover them here. But the results of infections can be both very painful and difficult to heal. Veterinary care is likely to focus on drug therapy or invasive procedures up to and including resection of the hoof wall.
In general, a farrier is likely to just put some "special shoe" on and douse the hoof with a noxious chemical under a pad to try to ward off the spread of the infection, or at least keep the hoof in one piece until the infection blows out of the coronary band.
The reality is that in many cases the shoe, or actually the nails running through the hoof, are open pathways for infection.


Have you ever seen a farrier sterilize a shoe nail? The inside of the hoof capsule is full of capillaries and is actually a blood pump. After driving a half-dozen nails through the growing area of a hoof, the likelihood of infection increases dramatically.



Also, many shoes are not reset in a timely fashion, typically 6-8 weeks. Allowing shoes to remain on past this time period puts unusual stresses on the hoof as it continues to grow and I have seen loosened nails allow decaying matter to get packed up into nail holes, once again providing easy access for infectious organisms.

A pasture grass and protein rich diet also compromise a horses immune system and redirect blood flow from the feet to the gut in an attempt to compensate for inflammation in the digestive tract. This reduces the blood flow through the hoof and allows bacteria that would otherwise be dealt with quickly in a healthy hoof, to grow out of control and blossom into infection. The solution...better diet and no shoes!


Injuries simply can't be helped sometimes. The best thing you can do for a hoof injury is contact your vet. There are various types of hoof boots available for applying medications or soaks, as well as used instead of shoeing to protect the injured hoof and provide support to the hoof capsule if necessary. Boots are far less invasive than horseshoes and don't require driving nails through injured hoof tissue.